Gaspar Núñez de Arce
(Valladolid, 1834-Madrid, 1903) Spanish poet.He studied in Toledo and Madrid, intervened in the politics of his time and, like the novelist Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, was a chronicler of the Africa campaign (1859-60).A member of the Sagasta Liberal Party, he held political positions, among others the Governor of Barcelona (1868) and the Minister of Overseas.
Gaspar Núñez de Arce
As a writer he was a dramatic author and lyrical poet.In collaboration with Antonio Hurtado he composed mediocre dramas such as El laurel de Zubia , Herir en la sombra and La jota aragonesa .Others belong to him completely: Debts of honor , Who owes, pays and Providential justice .Of all of them, only The bundle of firewood (1872) is worth saving from oblivion.The theme of this work is the prison and death of Prince Charles, son of Felipe II.In the interpretation of the episode, Núñez de Arce moved away from Friedrich Schiller, Vittorio Alfieri and Manuel José Quintana and adhered to a version more faithful, apparently, to the historical truth, thus eliminating the prince's supposed love passion for the Queen.
However, his best dramatic essays pale before his lyrical poetry, in which descriptions, religious, moral and political themes and historical-literary matters abound.In 1875 he published a volume of poetry entitled Cries of combat in which he collected his production from 1868 to 1874; the disenchantment of extremist politics, the excesses of debauchery so typical of the Spanish revolutions, the longing for order, peace, freedom, and exhaustion and skepticism of the soul are the fundamental ideas developed in these compositions, the most notable characteristic of which is the care of the form, the expressive fluidity and the eloquence sometimes bombastic and empty, all this with falls in the prosaic and the obvious.
The doubt is titled one of the poems of the volume, and this was one of the topics of our author. Raimundo Lulio is a symbolic poem in Dantean triplets, whose theme is the passions and repentance of Blessed Mallorcan Ramon Llull. The dark forest (1879) is an imitation of the Divine Comedy . The Last Lamentation of Lord Byron (1879), a song put into the mouth of the English poet, in well cut octaves, is full of literary, mythological, philosophical and political topics. Vertigo is a descriptive-moral legend, written in impeccable tenths; In The Vision of Fray Martín , the poet presents Luther moved by doubt; the Elegy to Alejandro Herculano is dedicated to the Portuguese and their past glories, on the occasion of the death of the Portuguese historian and poet; in Maruja (1886) conjugal love and charitable feelings are exalted; Fishing (1884) becomes a tale of marine customs.
Núñez de Arce is an epoch value; as a poet he is uneven, but a remarkable formal virtuosity cannot be denied.His work, judged as a whole, offers more quality than that of his contemporary Ramón de Campoamor, with whom he has, however, many similarities, especially in his appearance as an exhibitor in verse of philosophical and moral platitudes.
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